So right now I’m using the yomichan extension to create Chinese sentence cards. But I want to have two types of cards: English to Chinese, and Chinese to english, without having separate note types (I think note type and card type is very easy to mix up so I provided images as reference to what I’m talking about).
The reason for this is that if I have separate note types, I would have to go into the extension and change some stuff which just adds friction. But what I’m imagining is that I simply have two separate decks for English-chinese and chinese-english under one note type, and then I can just change the ordering of stuff on the card in one deck. But when I change the format of a card, it changes the format of the cards in both decks.
The “add card type” would be perfect, but for some reason, it creates a duplicate cards in both decks. This would be fine, but then when I create any new cards, it still creates duplicates (a card for both "card types)
So, how do I make different card types without the cards duplicating?
Or is there a easier way to do what I am trying to achieve? Any help is greatly appreicated
Yes, of course. What you are asking for is exactly what Anki is designed to do!
A note is a set of information that belongs together (e.g. word, translation, sample sentence). Each note is of a certain note type, which contains the fields you enter your information into, and the instructions for what cards Anki should create out of that information. Those instructions are card types/templates (e.g. English to Chinese, Chinese to English, etc.). Getting Started - Anki Manual
Pause there a second – decks don’t belong to or exist under notes/note types, they are independent. Decks only know about cards, not about notes. The cards produced from a particular note/note type can be in any decks, but each card can only be in one deck.
For example, the main note type I use creates up to 7 cards, which are automatically placed in 4 different decks.
When you update the template, every card made from that template (every card of that card type) will change, regardless of what deck it is in.
I wonder if what is happening here is you already have two notes of the same type with the same (or similar) information. So when you add a card type to that note type, both of those notes are making that additional card, so it ends up wtih duplicates for you. There are definitely ways to figure out if that’s what is happening.
The solution is that you have to find and delete the duplicate notes so that you can stop them from doing that.
